


I thought I'd dream of being dreamed of, thought I'd pine for a time

by Shadowcrawler



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cheese, F/F, Fluff, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:39:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcrawler/pseuds/Shadowcrawler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bennett's crush on Caroline Farrell was both completely obvious to everyone she knew and completely hopeless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I thought I'd dream of being dreamed of, thought I'd pine for a time

**Author's Note:**

> I'd apologize for this, except that I feel it's entirely necessary. Why shouldn't this pairing get ridiculous cheesy high school AU fluffy fic too? After all of the in-canon suffering they deserve some happiness somewhere. I haven't got any shame left.
> 
> This was part of a 30 days of OTP challenge I started at one point, and this was the best of the 10 or so snippets of fic I wrote so I cleaned it up and made it (hopefully) presentable and here we are. Just trying to brighten up the tag a little bit, folks. And because this fic contains my favorite bit of dialogue that I have ever written.
> 
> Title is from "All New (Heart Shut Tight)" by Marian Call.

Bennett wished more than anything that she could just disappear. 

That wasn’t a particularly novel wish for her, but this time it was more urgent than usual. She was currently huddling in a corner of the darkened Rossum High gymnasium, far from the alleged dance floor that had been created by pointing several colored spotlights at the center of the room. Approximately sixty-five percent of her classmates were clustered there, dancing to the beat of the Top 40 pop music being pumped through the speakers. If dancing was quite the right word – Bennett would’ve used a word closer to “grinding.” There was some straight-up dry humping going on that was making her very uncomfortable. She wondered once again why she was here. 

Of course: she’d been dragged by several other members of the Science Club, who’d insisted it would be “fun.” The thing was, though, that those members were at least a tiny bit more socially inclined than she was (in Ivy’s case, practically one of the popular kids). Most of them could hold their own in social interactions. Whereas Bennett would’ve been perfectly happy interacting with the minimum of people, and especially disliked having to make small talk most of her fellow students. The idea both frightened and irritated her.

Sighing, she tried to discreetly hitch up the bust of her dark green dress, which was far too low for her liking (another acquiescence to Ivy) and glanced around, the dim light making it hard to focus on anything. Long ago, Ivy and Topher had ditched her, in hopes of finding interesting prospects in the dance partner department (or in Topher’s case, someone who would listen patiently to his theory on parallel dimensions since he was now banned from bringing it up at all during club meetings). Mostly she was just looking for something, anything, to amuse her – but there was a tiny part of her that was hoping to see a certain popular girl weaving in and out of the mob of dancers. 

Her crush on Caroline Farrell was both completely obvious to everyone she knew and completely hopeless, since Caroline Farrell was both the most popular girl in school and half of the most well-known couple in school. She and Paul Ballard were infamous for their tempestuous relationship. Gossip at Rossum was almost always centered around their impending break-up or reconciliation, or sometimes both within the same week. Bennett thought that sort of chatter ridiculous and beneath her, but she couldn’t help but perk her ears up whenever she heard Caroline’s name come up in conversation. God help her, but the moment she’d seen the girl glide into the first day of homeroom their freshman year she knew she was completely gone. 

It was just…Caroline was the exact opposite of the cliché popular girl. Yes, she could be a pretty wild partier (Bennett estimated approximately seventy percent of the rumors that circulated at the beginning of each week about the other girl were either entirely false or highly exaggerated, but she’d seen enough of Caroline to know that she was indeed fond of having a good time), but she was also genuinely kind and passionate about things that mattered to her. She was the president of student council and helped to plan most of the school’s events, as well as volunteering at the local animal shelter three afternoons a week. On her downtime, she worked to raise awareness about important local campaigns such as fundraisers for local battered women’s shelters. Granted, not many people cared as much as Caroline, but she seemed determined to keep at it even if she ended up being the only one. (Once Bennett had donated half of the birthday check her grandfather had given her to one of Caroline’s fundraisers, partially out of a desire to help, but also she couldn’t help wishing it would make Caroline notice her.) 

And, of course, she was gorgeous. Physical appearances weren’t so important to Bennett, but she did have _eyes_. Caroline was perfectly put together, her body fit and toned and her glamorous outfits always chosen to make her look good. And her face – well, Bennett’s talents lay in the sciences, but when she looked at Caroline she understood the concept of the muse that the ancient poets and sculptors spoke of. (Not that she had ever tried writing poetry about Caroline. Except that once.)

Granted, she and Caroline hadn’t really _interacted_. Why would they? Caroline’s world and hers were in completely different spheres of reality; they technically shouldn’t have ever _met_ each other, except in asinine class introduction games at the beginning of the year and such. But just once, Bennett had been running late to catch the bus because she’d stayed late to finish a lab (her partner, Daniel Perrin, was the rich son of a local politician and seemed all too happy to have a lab partner who would shoulder his workload while he flirted with several pretty and stupid girls sitting nearby). Just when she was ready to stop running and give up hope, it screeched to a stop and opened its doors for her. And when she got on, ignoring the bus driver’s glare and trying to keep the flush on her cheeks from being too noticeable, Caroline had been sitting near the front and whispered to her as she passed, “Don’t worry about it, it happens to everyone.”

When she’d interrogated Ivy about it in hushed tones, Ivy’s eyes widened and she said, “Oh my god, Bennett, Caroline was totally the one who told Hearn to stop the bus for you! How the hell did you get on her radar?”

“I…I don’t know,” murmured Bennett, cheeks burning. “She saw me?”

“Yeah, she yelled at him to stop cause we were leaving somebody behind. Jesus, are you really that out of shape? Your face is the color of a tomato. Or, wait…” Ivy narrowed her eyes and grinned. “You _like_ her!”

“Shut up!” hissed Bennett, glancing fervently towards the front. Caroline appeared to be deep in conversation with one of her friends, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hear them and Bennett didn’t want to take any chances.

“Oh, I won’t say a word,” grinned Ivy, “but that’s totally adorable. Grossly cliché, but adorable. I mean, could you have _picked_ a more cliché high school crush? The absurdly popular girl who already has a boyfriend, really? This is like a gay Taylor Swift song. I might barf.”

Bennett shrugged helplessly. “She’s just…really cool, I don’t know.”

“And totally hot,” added Ivy. “Hell, if Topher and I weren’t kinda a thing I’d be into her too. Too bad about Paul, but maybe you can make a move on one of their off weeks. God, that’d be a great high school secret – ‘I banged the school’s most popular straight girl.’ I bet there’s some trashy lesbian flick with that plot.”

“Stop! I don’t want that, I just…” Trailing off, Bennett murmured, “She wouldn’t want anything to do with me anyway.”

For once Ivy looked serious. “Aw, Ben, sure she would. You’re awesome. So awesome, I bet you could even make a certified straight girl like Ms. Popular fall for you. And if she doesn’t, then it’s her loss.”

“Thanks,” said Bennett, smiling.

While the memory played in the back of her head, Bennett scanned the crowd in the defeated way of someone who refuses to give up the tiny shred of hope they’re clinging to. Finally, not seeing a trace of either Caroline or Paul, she gave up, shuffling in the direction of the refreshments table in the hopes of maybe getting a brownie out of the evening, at least.

Once there, she decided it was as good a place as any to lurk. Having scored her brownie, she was just settling into her new hiding spot when she heard someone say, “You’re Bennett Halverson, right?”

She turned around to see who was talking and almost dropped the brownie in shock. A pair of warm brown eyes were looking right into hers – Caroline Farrell’s eyes. _Caroline Farrell was talking to her._ “I…” she stammered, taking a necessary moment to remind herself how to breathe and talk and do all those things necessary for remaining upright. “Ah, y-yes, yes, I am. H-How do you know my name?” she asked, curiosity overruling her instinctive shyness. 

“C’mon, I’ve known you since the ninth grade,” chuckled Caroline, but not in a mean way. “We’ve had like five classes together and I see you around a lot.”

“See…me? Around?” Bennett was very aware she was acting like an idiot, but on the other hand it was sort of a miracle she could talk at all because _Caroline Farrell knew who she was and was talking to her_. “Um, really?”

“Yeah.” Caroline reached for a cookie elegantly and offered it to her. “I actually feel really bad I didn’t get to know you better before now. I’m busy a lot, but I like to try to make friends with interesting people, which you definitely are. You’re in the Science Club, right? With Topher and Ivy and them?”

Bennett took the cookie, hands shaking, and nodded. “Yes, they, um, they kind of dragged me here.” Suddenly she was all too conscious of her exposed collarbone, wishing she’d remembered to adjust her dress again. “But then they disappeared off somewhere, I think to go dance? And I don’t like crowds, I’m not much of a dancer, so I just stayed over here.” She nibbled at the cookie, glad to have something to channel her nerves into besides her fingernails.

“Aw, you don’t have a real date? I find that hard to believe.” Caroline scrutinized her for a moment. “I mean, I know dudes are seriously intimidated by pretty girls that are smarter than they are, but seriously? Not one guy asked you?”

Shrugging, Bennett tried to laugh but it came out sounding forced. “I don’t have much luck with guys. Or anyone.” 

“Damn shame. I bet you’d be a fine dancer if you just had somebody to teach you.” Caroline looked as if she were thinking about something. Then, the heavy downbeat of the music abruptly changed to a slower, more romantic song. She nodded as if to herself, and held out her hand. “Wanna come dance with me?”

Everything in Bennett’s world ground to a stop. All that existed was Caroline’s hand held out to her, and those five words. A thousand stupid teenage fantasies, and all of them came down to this moment. After what felt like an eternity in her head (but what was probably more like ten seconds), she said “Yes” with absolute certainty and put her hand in Caroline’s. 

She expected Caroline to want to stay in the shadows, but to her surprise Caroline gently guided her out onto the outskirts of the dance floor, just far enough away from everyone else that Bennett could feel moderately comfortable. She still froze for just a moment, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room on her (even though she knew, rationally, that most of them were too busy staring at their partners to pay attention to two girls on the edge of the floor), but when Caroline turned to face her and put her other hand on Bennett’s hip, murmuring, “It’s okay, see? Just sway back and forth, it’s easy” she found herself relaxing a little. After a minute or so she stopped focusing so much on doing everything exactly right, put her left hand on Caroline’s shoulder and got up the courage to look at Caroline, albeit a bit shyly. 

“This okay?” asked Caroline gently, still holding her right hand. “I figured you wouldn’t want to be that close to anybody else, since you said you don’t like crowds much.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” murmured Bennett, feeling as if her heart might burst. Her head spun with questions – how was it possible this was happening? Where was Paul? Why did Caroline come over to her like that? Was it possible this was all some big ridiculous joke and the other shoe was going to drop any second now, like the climax of a bad teen comedy? That would just be too cruel, but it wouldn’t surprise her either. Gathering up all her courage, she whispered, “What are you doing?”

Raising an eyebrow, Caroline asked, “What do you mean?” She didn’t look offended, just a bit confused.

“I mean…here, dancing, with me. You’re you, and I’m…nobody important, and don’t you have a boyfriend?” Bennett could tell she was starting to work herself up, but she couldn’t help it. She had to know. “Caroline, I’m not stupid. I know this isn’t how life works. The beautiful popular girl doesn’t just come over and start talking to an outcast, not unless there’s something else in the works. So I just…wanted to know what the something else is.” Bennett dropped her eyes, embarrassed by her outburst. 

“You think I’m playing a joke on you?” said Caroline, her tone gentle. “I’m not, Bennett. I wanted to get to know you, that’s all. I thought since you were all alone, it would be a good opportunity to talk to you. And I don’t want to talk about Paul right now,” she added. “Paul doesn’t matter. We’re here right now, and that’s what matters. Okay?” Then, to Bennett’s shock, Caroline pressed a quick, insistent kiss to her lips. “Did that convince you?” she asked, her voice light again.

Bennett probably would have gone limp, except her body had begun to sway back and forth out of habit. As it was, she just looked into Caroline’s eyes for a moment, letting herself get lost in the moment, and then breathed, “Yes.” 

“Good.” Caroline seemed amused at Bennett’s reaction. “Now, quiet that genius mind of yours for a while and just let yourself enjoy this.” And Bennett did as she was told.


End file.
